


Loyal Companions

by StopTalkingAtMe



Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Gen, Mild Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-15 05:46:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28933500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StopTalkingAtMe/pseuds/StopTalkingAtMe
Summary: What in the name of all the gods is the Dragonborn meant to do with a dog?
Relationships: Female Dovahkiin | Dragonborn & Meeko
Comments: 8
Kudos: 7
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 6





	Loyal Companions

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Amiodara](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amiodara/gifts).



Somewhere south of Solitude, on the edge of the Drajkmyr Marsh, Ida Roscius went still, every instinct she had telling her she was being watched. It seemed an age before the feeling passed and she could ease off, and even then she couldn't quite bring herself to let go of her unease, her gaze searching the undergrowth and the glassy surface of the water. No wonder she was nervous, though, given where she was and the stories she'd heard about the place. Still uncomfortable, she continued to build up the campfire, chafing her all-but-frostbitten hands together.

Under other circumstances, and with the sky still light enough to travel, she might have pressed on. The prospect of an inn and a warm bed was a promising one, but as a child of County Leyawiin, she was instinctively leery of losing her way in a marsh, and she'd been hearing stories about _this_ marsh all her life. Drajkmyr struck her as a place that could swallow up ruins and more: a landscape of clammy mists and drowned bones, the haunt of venomous creatures and those in thrall to the dead. More than a match for any adventurer. Even her. She had no intention of falling for her own building legend when it came to the dangers that might lie in a marsh.

From where she sat, she could see a cluster of deathbells growing around the base of a crooked tree. Blousy and thriving, they leached poison into the air. She could taste it, bitter in the back of her throat. And there were lights in the mist... Almost certainly nothing more sinister than torchbugs, but her imagination was already refashioning them into Will o’the wisps or the lost spirits of the dead.

“Good night for a ghost story,” she murmured. Except, of course, for the small matter of having no one to share it with.

Too long since she’d had a travelling companion. She’d never much liked journeying on her own, especially somewhere as vast and desolate as Skyrim. It wasn’t just the physical risks she had to worry about (although it seemed Skyrim had a never-ending supply of enemies to test her skills against): it was the _silence_. Spend too long on your own and it started worming its way into your skull. Especially on the clear nights when there wasn't even the soft hush of snowfall to leaven it, the nights when it was heightened by the eerie ribbons of light dancing soundlessly overhead.

She’d lie there, listening to the Shouts hum inside her, a soft fizzing in the cavity of her chest. Feeling a barely perceptible tug in her bones and knowing it was a word wall she was feeling, somewhere buried deep under the earth beneath her feet.

The sort of nights which left her wishing with all her heart that she had someone to keep her company.

Nights, in other words, a bit like this.

The whole Dragonborn mess had changed everything. Even with Lydia, and she’d _liked_ Lydia, especially once Ida had broken through her naturally taciturn shell. And then had come the tablet and the dragons and the Greybeards and the minor matter of Ida’s world being turned upside down, and travelling with Lydia had ever quite been the same after that. Nor had she been able to find any other companions she felt comfortable with, and the gods knew she’d tried.

It was always fine, right up until the moment they heard her Shout for the first time. And once they did, they always took on the same look: stunned, disbelieving, wary. Like something in their midst they’d taken to be entirely mundane had suddenly revealed itself as having stepped out from the Merethic Era.

She was getting a bit sick of that look, and even then it wasn’t as bad as what came afterwards–

In the gathering darkness, something moved.

Ida’s hand darted towards her sword. As her fingers brushed against the hilt, a shape came limping out of the shadows. She exhaled, torn between relief and frustration.

Just the dog. The one she’d stumbled across in the ruined shack near Dragonbridge.

She’d smelled death as she approached so she’d been expecting the corpse. What she hadn’t been expecting was the dog waiting patiently for his master to wake up. He was an old Nord wolfhound, almost the size of a pony, with a shaggy coat so laced with grey it was impossible to judge his age. He’d been lying by the side of the bed, grizzled muzzle resting on paws the size of dinner plates, and as she entered, he lifted his head, tail beating so hard against the floorboards she could almost feel the breeze. Hopeful, like now she was there she could take over, heal his master, and everything would be all right.

“Good dog,” she heard herself saying, her ill-used voice little more than a croak, and that tail beat a little harder still.

She’d done what she could, although it wasn’t much.

The remains of the mouldering blanket pulled up over the corpse’s face, and a sprig of lavender left atop the covers. She tossed some strips of jerky from her pack to the dog, whose name, the dead man’s journal informed her, was Meeko. Ida half-wished she hadn’t gone nosing. A name was something she could have done without.

When she left the shack the dog had followed until she’d turned and shouted at him to leave her alone, and then, when he still shown signs of slinking after her, she'd thrown him a chunk of meat from her pack in the hopes it would distract him long enough for her to get away. That had been the slab of nicely marbled fresh beef she’d picked up in Dragonbridge and which she'd damned well been looking forward to. Still, not like she'd had a choice. What in Oblivion was _she_ meant to do with a dog on her heels?

Besides, a dog like that wasn’t far removed from a wolf: he could look after himself.

So she’d assumed, anyway, but maybe she hadn’t taken into account quite how perilous Skyrim could be to a creature on its own. By the looks of the way he was holding his paw as he limped forwards, he’d been injured.

Ida gave up.

“What have you done to yourself?” she said softly. Rising into a crouch, she held out a strip of meat torn from the rabbit, and was very nearly knocked over by the force of a happy dog considerably larger than her. A nose was thrust into her neck, until she pulled herself together and buried her fingers in the ruff of coarse hair at his neck to push him back.

“Easy,” she said, and then, when that seemed to make no difference to the overwhelming whirlwind of canine energy, she let an edge enter her voice: “ _Down_.”

The dog relented, dropping onto his haunches.

“Good dog, Meeko!” she said, and he barked happily. “Let me have a look at you.”

He whined, but made no other complaint as she checked him over, then gathered her magicka and channelled it into a healing spell. Unless trying to lick her face counted as a complaint.

Well-cared for, she judged. A much-loved dog. And younger than she’d thought at first glance. In good condition, too, although much too thin, his ribs easily discerned beneath his coat. Too distracted from the task of mourning for his master to feed himself, and her heart squeezed at the thought.

When he tried to lick her face again, she pushed him away. “Enough.”

Meeko whined and settled a little way away, eyes on her.

“That’s all I can do for you,” she said, shuffling around to face the marsh and turn her back on him. Through the withered skeletal trees she could see a smear of the eerie purple sky reflected in the marsh water. Out in the darkness, something splashed. Ida barely noticed: she was too intent on the dog. She didn't have to glance his way to know he was watching her.

“There’s no point looking at me like that,” she said, and even so, without looking around, she peeled off another strip of rabbit and threw it to Meeko. He snapped it out of the air.

“Right," she said, speaking more to herself than to the dog. “That's it. There’s no more where that came from. There’s barely any meat on a rabbit as it is.”

The smell of dog enveloped her. Then she felt a weight on her leg. She looked down, saw Meeko’s chin resting on her knee, liquid brown eyes rolled up towards her with a look so hopeful she couldn't stop herself laughing. It was a sound which seemed to have become almost as unfamiliar as her voice.

“Fine,” she said. “ _Fine._ Have it your own way.” She scratched behind his ears and shared out more rabbit, regretfully aware of her own grumbling belly. Still, she could set out at first light and it wouldn’t be too far to Morthal. There wasn’t much there, godsforsaken place that it was, but at least it had an inn and a surprisingly comfortable one at that. And there'd be someone who could take a dog off her hands.

After they'd both come as close to having their fill as they were likely to, Meeko rolled over onto his side so she could scratch his belly.

How long had it been since he’d last had a decent meal, she wondered, aware of how thin he was. How long spent waiting for his master to wake up? “Oh godsdamn.” She dug her fingers into his coarse ruff of fur, and closed her eyes. “I suppose you can stay with me tonight. Mainly because I haven’t the energy to chase you off right now. But you’re not coming with me any further than Morthal and that’s final. You'll like Morthal. It's... well, it's a horrible place. But you're a dog. You probably won't care."

No sign that he’d understood her. She wondered how he’d react if they ran into trouble and he heard her Shout, but he had the air of a dog who’d take things in his stride.

She’d never been able to figure out exactly what it meant to be Dragonborn, whether she was the result of a long-illegitimate branch of the Septims or if if came from some other cause. There was no one for her to ask, except, she supposed, for the Greybeards, but they were so far removed from Skyrim, let alone the rest of Tamriel, that it wasn’t as if any explanations they could give her would ever actually prove useful in any practical sense.

A long time ago, when she was a child, she’d been packed off to Bruma to visit an aunt who headed the Fighters’ Guild Chapter there. Her aunt had taken her out to see the scars in the earth where the Great Gate to Oblivion had opened centuries ago, the place where the last Dragonborn Emperor had fought his first victorious battle.

The last Dragonborn Emperor.

No surprises that once the shock of hearing her Shout her companions always, without fail, began to ask themselves what she was, what it meant. She could see the questions in their eyes, and maybe it was just her own questions reflected back at her, but it was suffocating. Better, on the whole, to be on her own, at least until she figured out some of the answers to those questions, but that, she thought, could take a while. At least a dog wouldn't ask any questions, unless they were along the lines of where the next rabbit was coming from.

“How long were you there?" she murmured. "Waiting for someone to come along?” When no answer was forthcoming, she sighed and lay back on her bedroll, gazing up at the shimmering sky. Luna moths danced, displaying themselves in Segunda’s light, the moon like a crystal ball shrouded with iridescent cloth. “Unlucky for you that it was me. Because you’re still not coming with me.”

Meeko huffed and settled his head on his paws. After a few moments of silence, she turned her head and found him watching her. His ears were pricked, as if he understood what she was saying and moreover suspected that she didn’t really mean it. Clever dog like this, he probably did.

“You’re not going to listen to a word I say, are you?”

Meeko cocked his head.

She groaned and turned her gaze back up to the sky. “Do you like ghost stories, Meeko? Because I know a ghost story about this place. They say there’s a spirit who haunts these swamps, forever searching and weeping for her long daughter...” And for a while at least there was nothing but her voice, weaving the tale around them, and bringing an end to the silence, even if it couldn't possibly last. 

After she'd finished, Meeko rose and padded closer, dropping down beside her. Ida, drifting closer to sleep, made no protest, finding his weight pressed against her and draped over her lower legs, comforting. In her drowse, she reached down and scratched his back, then closed her eyes and let sleep take her.

Out in the marsh, water splashed softly as a shape broke the surface and paused on the bank. It contemplated them carefully for a long time, then, as if thinking better of whatever it had in mind, it plunged back beneath the surface of the water and slipped away.


End file.
